Young Reds shine as Victory prove no match

The Adelaide United Youth Team has extended their unbeaten streak to five games, winning three-nil against the Melbourne Victory Youth Team on Sunday morning.

In hot and windy conditions both sides started the game evenly, which saw both teams happy to attack each other with purpose.

In the 15th minute it was Adelaide who came closest to hitting the net first, as a cross field pass played through by Adam Piscioneri found Bruce Kamau who whipped in a fast paced ball only for handball shouts to be questioned by the crowd and players of the Adelaide United Youth team.

The Young Reds from then on continued to mount attacks, this time through some nice work on the wing by Bruce Kamau who was able to draw a Melbourne player and lay it off to Nathan Konstandopoulos whose shot was expertly tipped over the bar by Melbourne keeper Stephen Hatzikourtis.

The Young Reds defence throughout portions of the first half continued to absorb pressure and stand tall, as series of attacks started from Melbourne Victory Captain Christopher Cristaldo and marksman Anthony Duzel were dealt with well by the Young Reds back line.

In the 40th minute a superb in-swinging ball by Adam Pisicioneri found striker Anthony Costa who cleverly wrapped his foot around the ball only seeing it skim off the top of the bar.

With all of Adelaide’s pressure everyone could feel a goal coming and in the 43rd minute a superb corner taken by Oliver Zafridis was met firmly by the head of Benjamin Warland giving the Young Reds a 1-0 lead heading into the halftime break.

As the referee blew for the commencement of the second half it was the Adelaide United Youth who started off the better of the two sides. Some lovely individual work by Dylan Smith nearly went rewarded as he played in Nathan Konstandopoulos whose low driven shot went straight down the arms of Stephen Hatzikourtis.

From then on Adelaide’s quick ball movement and hunger became too much for the Victory Youth as once again Nathan Konstandoplous found space at the edge of the box whose shot was parried by keeper Hatzikourtis and was slammed into the net by marksman Anthony Costa giving the Young Reds a 2-0 advantage.

Adelaide’s sheer dominance all over the pitch was noticeable by the many in attendance which sparked another attack, this time through Dylan Smith whose rising shot was tipped over the bar reinforcing the dominance shown by the Young Reds.

In the 58th minute a free kick on the right side of the pitch was taken by Oliver Zafridis whose ball into the box was cleverly flicked back by Anthony Costa allowing Nathan Konstandopolous to comfortably tuck the ball into the net and all but seal the three points for the Adelaide United Youth.

Towards the end of the match Adelaide became comfortable in possession and stood up in defence, outlasting fewer attacks from the Melbourne Victory Youth.

At full time the Young Reds held onto their three goal advantage which saw them outlast the Melbourne Victory Youth.

“Overall it was it was a good win and a win which we needed to have, especially here (in Adelaide) because we have been playing well and it now pushes us up further on the table,” said Coach Michael Valkanis after the match.

“What we need to improve on heading into next week’s match is; can we play our second half performance from the first half and for 90 minutes and look to dominate the whole game?

“But what I was most happy with again was that we kept zero at the back, so we’ve improved that much defensively as a team from the first six rounds that we have the best defensive record. So we’re very proud of that because we talk about the attacking style and scoring goals but also our positional play has to be perfect so that we are doing a lot better.”